[Advaita-l] Welcome Vidyasankar Sundaresan

[V Subrahmanian]

Kiranavali's post; not everyone will have an FB account:
Our journey in life following Vidyasankar Sundaresan
<https://www.facebook.com/vidyasankar.sundaresan?__cft__[0]=AZWVm9fyU_9Q5V1aLlgRGjHFGSd-UfZGtJyJ3-7zK7QPg0MB_g3NPTBuadQgI-RJa3I6tm7jVwzEJ1web0t7h0Fpjk3QDp6CQDCbhs6O2BbQqfIVhMjfjFEmzbKcheEfXHw&__tn__=-]K-R>'s
stroke 8 years ago have been so full of twists and turns, it was sometimes
impossible to imagine what the next minute would bring. It makes me very
emotional to think how Vidyasankar has handled this sudden and dramatic
change in his plans - with super-human levels of patience, acceptance,
fortitude and a constant smile, to be mindful of my morale. His strong
anchoring in Indian scriptures and philosophy has surely played a big part.
Given that life is a mixed bag, even in some of the darkest moments, there
were some mercies. For example, Vidyasankar's brilliant mind, with its
way-higher-than-average memory, was left intact. But as we all know, this
is a double edged sword that could have made life worse with someone of
less calibre than him.
While it is easy to have a lot of ideas on how to be more spiritual or
motivate oneself in such helpless circumstances, it takes stupendous effort
to stay on track and find purpose again in living as the alternative seems
closer. It was indeed incredible to see Vidyasankar correctly answer
questions posed each hour by the ICU nurses to check his cognition levels
such as the day, date, year or other mundane details. Especially remarkable
given that in the ICU, days merged into nights and into weeks and months,
even for those of us who were up and about. And all this when he was
incapacitated to the point that he could only answer with the blink of his
eyes. He would exactly describe his symptoms to his doctors, with the help
of a letter board, spelling out things such as phantom pain, while we
scrambled to Google to find out what they meant! After about 2 years of
therapy, he regained his speech to a decent degree, but at all times has
relentlessly worked to kept his mind active through chants, podcasts,
consumption of daily news and watching shows. Lately, he has been asking
our daughter to quiz him on math-based stuff like logarithms.
Early in November 2024, another series of twists, culminated in the
unexpected blessing of meeting with the Sringeri Acharya, Sri.
Vidhushekhara Bharati. Though young in age, he carries the wisdom of a ripe
gnani, that immediately touched both of us. At his behest, Vidyasankar
resumed his journey in writing on Vedanta. While the Acharyas have always
taken a personal interest in his recovery and welfare from the minute they
heard about his ill-health, putting back a strong purpose to his life has
simply been the most meaningful blessing of all. In March this year, when I
saw Vidyasankar dictate his first article to a young aspirant of Vedanta,
in a matter of an hour, a thousand emotions, suppressed and expressed
surfaced. Today, with a ton of gratitude and happiness, I share his first
article in a series that will be published in Tattvaloka, the monthly
magazine of Dakshinamnaya Sri Sringeri Sharada Peetham
<https://www.facebook.com/sringerimath?__cft__[0]=AZWVm9fyU_9Q5V1aLlgRGjHFGSd-UfZGtJyJ3-7zK7QPg0MB_g3NPTBuadQgI-RJa3I6tm7jVwzEJ1web0t7h0Fpjk3QDp6CQDCbhs6O2BbQqfIVhMjfjFEmzbKcheEfXHw&__tn__=-]K-R>.
Kindly add your prayers for his continued contribution, recovery and
happiness. Sorry for the long post.


On Fri, Jul 25, 2025 at 7:09 PM V Subrahmanian <v.subrahmanian at gmail.com>
wrote:

>
> https://www.facebook.com/744842420/posts/10163323876397421/?mibextid=rS40aB7S9Ucbxw6v
>
> Kiranavali Vidyasankar broke the very exciting news of the return of our
> dear Vidyasankar Sundaresan to the world of Vedanta. Read the story in the
> above link.
>
> Warm regards
> subbu
>